


Better Than One

by Innerspace



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Clone Sex, Clones, Cloning doesn't work like that, Dirty Talk, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Multi, Power Play, Pre-Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Pre-Season/Series 03, Self-cest, The dubcon is between Sherlock and his clone, Threesome - M/M/M, Very slight dubcon, it all works out in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:56:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1863654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innerspace/pseuds/Innerspace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is--strange,” John breathes as, behind him, Sherlock’s double pulls John’s jumper and t-shirt off over his head.</p><p>“Try not to think about it,” Sherlock says from beneath him, one hand ghosting up John’s newly-exposed skin, across his chest, the soft touch making John shiver. </p><p>“No, I mean--” John starts, but has to stop as the humid press of a mouth begins a gradual glide down his back, its trail following the curve of his spine as he arches in surprise.  “I mean, what’s strange is--I think maybe I should find this--more strange?”</p><p>“But you do find it strange,” says the second version of Sherlock in a low rumble, as he presses John back against his own chest again.  Only now, John is surprised by the contact of bare skin against his.  “And you *like* strange.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Than One

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend [ExplosionLimit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ExplosionLimit), who helped encourage and inspire this story (as well as beta-reading, though of course any remaining mistakes are mine). I actually started on this a year ago (pre-season 3) when she had requested a clone fic with very specific criteria, only about half of which I managed to fill. I hope the final product is nonetheless relatively satisfactory.
> 
> The original prompt was something like this: PWP in which Sherlock somehow clones himself and then they both have sex with John (either, while trying to see how long they can hide that there's two of them, or else trying to make John figure out which is the 'real one') with bonus points if it's also a 'first time' fic (and sherlock is just that bad of an influence on himself)!
> 
> Comments, kudos, and bookmarks are framed, enshrined, and otherwise treasured forever in the deepest cockles of my heart! <3

**Better Than One**

The seed of the idea had been planted in his mind at Baskerville. Dolly the sheep. Human cloning? Not off the table, not out of the question. Well within the realm of possibility.

Since then, he had quietly been preparing, almost unconsciously.

No one was ever going to rent 221C, for example, and it hadn’t taken long to convince Mrs. Hudson of that fact. But Sherlock hadn’t realized at first what he was securing the room for, though he somehow conveniently never got around to mentioning to John the new addition to their living space.

It was just another experiment.  One with himself as the test subject (who better?). One involving more expensive and potentially dangerous equipment than even Mycroft would have imagined Sherlock could amass, particularly on short notice. One that he hadn’t actually quite believed he was capable of pulling off.

Until he had.

To be perfectly honest, Sherlock had not given a lot of thought to the consequences.

-o-o-o-o-o-

“What’s preventing you?”

“What?” Sherlock asks (himself). He has started to think of his other self as Sherlock Beta, for ease of reference, though currently he has to admit to being thrown for a bit of a loop, which of course should never happen to Sherlock Alpha, to _Sherlock 1.0_.

Sherlock Beta is acting extraordinarily disinterested in his own chosen topic of conversation, as he paws through the contents of one kitchen cupboard. It is not entirely clear if he is actually looking for something as he pulls out boxes of tea, tins of beans, jars of tomato sauce that have been gathering dust for years, and the desiccated remains of a mouse who had apparently been nibbling Sherlock’s emergency backup stash of nicotine patches (cigarettes had been banned by John several months ago, and even Sherlock’s highly secret stash (hidden in a small plastic bag, taped behind the periodic table in his bedroom) had been located and silently destroyed). “I’m talking about your blogger. _Our_ blogger.”

Sherlock grabs the box of nicotine patches out of his double’s hand, a bit roughly. “No idea what you’re talking about. Incidentally, he’s _not_ “our” blogger: _you_ have yet to do anything worthy of a blog entry. I’m not sure that any part of this experiment is going to be fit for public consumption, actually.” Searching for any nicotine patches that might have escaped the ravages of rodents, he adds, “Besides, I’m not sharing him.”

At this Sherlock Beta turns, drawing his eyebrows together and crossing his arms over his chest, across the deep purple shirt his creator had let him borrow. Sherlock has never seen himself pout, and he has to admit to being rather impressed by the overall effect. “You _are_ aware that keeping me locked in 221C is not a permanent solution.” When Sherlock responds with only a noncommittal hum, the pout is replaced by a more calculating expression. “Obviously I’ve only been remaining in that room while we figure out the best way to break this news to John. I could quite easily leave any time I choose.”

It’s probably true. Sherlock knows that a simple lock on a door would pose no barrier if he was himself being held prisoner in 221C. The main function of the lock, at this point, is in keeping other people _out_.

No, he had most definitely failed to consider the complications posed by this experiment’s success, and now they have a bit of a quandary.

“So, what are our options?” Sherlock Beta continues, pacing in front of the kitchen cabinets with his hands behind his back. “You could, of course, _try_ to lock me away, continue to study me and experiment. But as stated, you do know that we could escape from nearly any prison, given enough time and the right opportunity.” Sherlock bites his bottom lip in irritation. His clone picks up a half-finished cup of tea from the counter, clearly left over from John’s breakfast, the end of a second cup which had been hastily brewed and reluctantly abandoned as John attempted to counteract the hours of sleep he'd been losing over the past... eleven days. He holds it at arm’s length, apparently examining the way it fits his hand. “Let’s see. You could move out. Create a false identity, go live in the countryside and—I don’t know, start keeping bees. I find I’m actually rather fascinated by bees.” He smiles, looking at his creator, and Sherlock recognizes it as the insincere simulacrum of a smile he uses to irritate Mycroft. “Leave me here with your flat. Your job, such as it is. Your friends, few though they are. Your life. I’ve no doubt I could manage it as well as you, perhaps better.”

Sherlock watches his clone holding John’s teacup.

He thinks about this man passing for him, wearing his blue dressing gown, caressing his violin, lounging in his chair, solving cases with John, running around London with John, returning to their flat with John, and John making this other Sherlock cups of tea and never realizing that it wasn’t really _him_. Sherlock feels his hands clench, a gesture which of course does not go unnoticed by his double. “You could always kill me—well, you could _try._ ” He smirks, and Sherlock considers the odds of surviving a physical altercation with himself. Likely it would end with two matching dead bodies, and Sherlock can only imagine what a nightmare tableau _that_ would be to greet John upon his arrival home.

No, too risky. But it does remind him that they’re on something of a schedule. “We can discuss this later,” he announces to the man currently standing like a monument to obstinacy in his kitchen. “John will be returning from work, and until we can both agree on a more permanent solution, I think it’s best if you stay downstairs.” Sherlock starts to turn towards the door, hoping against hope that his clone will see reason and simply follow.

Instead, he stays in place as if rooted in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. The smirk on his face (infuriating, so bloody _smug!_ ) has deepened and entrenched itself, apparently also intending to stick around for a bit. “Ah, yes, John. Mustn’t spoil his high opinion of you any more than you have already. Which brings me back to my original question. What is it that’s preventing you… from _having_ him?”

Sherlock’s back stiffens, he feels a pulse of panic start to override the logic center of his brain. “What—this is ridiculous.” _He knows. Of course he knows, you can hide it from John, you can hide it from everyone else, but not from yourself, never from yourself._

His clone chuckles, a low, vibrating sound that Sherlock can almost feel in his own bones. It resonates at a familiar frequency, reminding him of the laughs he’s shared with John, private moments after a killer had been caught, when they were both awash in adrenaline, soaring with it, and giddy with the knowledge that they had beaten something, were still alive, still breathing, still _able_ to laugh like this, letting it build until their sides hurt.

And sometimes that had been enough for Sherlock, and he would smile and John would duck his head and they would continue on to have dinner at Angelo’s, or back to the flat for a movie and take-away.

Sometimes, though—and this was what Sherlock knew his clone must also be aware of—sometimes as their laughter trailed off, and Sherlock felt his heart pumping in his chest, he would suddenly become hyperaware of John’s presence beside him. He would hear each of John’s panted gasps as a separate entity to be cherished, feel the heat radiating outward from John’s skin, bridging the space between them. He would glance at John’s face, as their audible breaths layered atop one another blending into a single sound, and their eyes would catch. Sherlock would _feel_ how their gazes caught, and held, as John stared right back, something between a question and a challenge.

Yet, eventually, inevitably, one of them would blink, or turn, or take that one step back, and the moment would pass.

The other Sherlock watches all this run through his creator’s mind, patiently. He places John’s teacup on the kitchen table (not bothering to avoid the papers scattered there), then moves around it, approaching him, forcing Sherlock to walk backwards in order to maintain the space between them. _What is happening here?_ The thought flashes into his head as he watches his clone walking towards him. It is not a casual stroll: his movements seem deliberate, purposeful.  He is _stalking._ “What are you running from, Sherlock?” the other version of him asks. Sherlock is not accustomed to watching himself move, for all the time he has spent standing in front of a mirror. Now, he observes the man in the purple shirt sliding towards him, and is struck by a sense of dreamlike unreality. Hard to believe that this gracefully prowling figure is him: his bearing, his poise, the easy confidence of each step. Is this what other people see? Is this what John sees?

The smirk on his double’s lips is both familiar and strangely foreign. “You’re frightened,” he says, now only an arm’s length away. He’s backed Sherlock into the center of their sitting room, not making any threatening movements, but still slowly driving him backward as if by the mere force of his presence.

“Ludicrous.” Sherlock’s own senses betray him, however, as he notices and catalogues the slight tremor in his voice, the rapid throb of his heartbeat in his head. “You’re me.”

“Exactly.” The other man has stopped advancing, so Sherlock stills as well. Now they are regarding each other, only a few steps apart, one warily, the other with an air of smug superiority.

 _This is wrong,_ Sherlock thinks, desperately. He is the original, he is _real,_ and thus he is the one who should be staring confidently, condescendingly at this imposter in his purple shirt. How dare he, how dare he _presume_ to, to even _suggest_ that he could take Sherlock’s place, live his life better than he could? Sherlock finds that _he_ is the one under attack, he is the one left trying to justify himself, to defend his identity. It is irrational. It is completely irrational and ridiculous, and all at once he cannot stand that cocky little smile for one more moment and he lashes out, intending to land his fist in the middle of that familiar face. In a movement just as sudden and precise as Sherlock’s own, his double reaches out to stop the blow. The force of their momentum throws them off balance, however, and as his clone falls, he knocks Sherlock’s legs out from under him as well.

The breath is knocked out of his lungs as he hits the floor on his back. His clone is sprawled out at a 45 degree angle alongside him, their long legs in a tangle. Before Sherlock can catch his breath enough to move, the other man has shifted above him. He is sitting directly below Sherlock’s pelvis, his spine curving in an arch that terminates where he has pinned Sherlock’s arms above his head, long elegant fingers circling just below long elegant wrists. They are both breathing a bit heavily, and the air trapped between their twin bodies feels close and weighted. Sherlock has no idea what expression his own face is advertising at the moment—he attempts to keep it carefully blank—but the version of his face hovering over his is undoubtedly thrilled, triumphant. A wide grin stretches his double’s lips, his eyes light up. “I happen to know,” his own voice vibrates out of the chest above him, “that you find this position _stimulating_.” Sherlock tries not to concentrate on the way his pulse has sped up, tries to ignore the heat rising to his neck, his face. “But even if I hadn’t known, I believe there is sufficient evidence to lead me to the conclusion without too much _effort._ ” He times the last word to coincide with an unexpected shift of his lower body, a deliberate grind of hips that illustrates his point perfectly as it drags his clothed erection against Sherlock’s own, which he had been hoping vainly to hide. He gasps at the sensation, both aroused and alarmed, and begins to struggle against the arms holding him in place. His clone has obviously claimed the strategically key position, however, as Sherlock finds he doesn’t have the leverage necessary to free himself.

“What—what are you doing?” Sherlock growls, panting as he arches his body, hoping to dislodge his double from his perch.

“Just filling in.” He watches his own lips form the words above him, fascinated in spite of himself. His double’s voice has slid into a lower register, a purring rumble that Sherlock cannot remember having ever used before. Of course, he must have… but hearing his voice coming from outside his own head is uncanny. “We both know that you’d rather it was _John_ straddling your hips, pressing you into the floor like this.” Another torturously slow slide of heat and pressure over his restrained cock. Sherlock’s breath catches in his throat. His double chuckles, leans his head down close enough that Sherlock can feel the warm, moist air on his ear when he speaks again. “How many times have you imagined it, vividly, only to bury it in a well-worn cupboard in your mind palace? John. John _wanting_ you. You’ve pictured him just like this. Desperate to have you, dropping that veneer of patience, losing control and pushing you against the wall… grappling with you, tackling you to the floor, if he has to…”

The spike of arousal that lances up through his brain takes him by surprise, and a small groan escapes before he can stifle it. For a split second he imagines himself saying _no, stop,_ but the words never pass his lips and his own voice, like the devil on his shoulder, continues to vibrate in his ear. “Imagine yourself struggling against him, trying to fight him off, just to test the extent of his _need_ , to see how far past his limits you can push him. Do you want to see if he’ll start tearing your clothes off, if you continue to resist? Do you want to see how many bruises you can collect from his rough handling?”

Sherlock tries to blot out the images flowing into his head and clouding his thoughts with lust. Tries to regain some semblance of reason. “John—John wouldn’t, he would never…”

“Don’t be so _dull!_ ” his clone snaps back at him, rolling his eyes. “Can you really pretend even to _yourself_ that you don’t dream about it? I already know all of your fantasies, Sherlock. We share them. And they do run quite dark, don’t they? You want to see John desire you so deeply, so intensely, that he’d disregard all moral decency to have you. You fight him, in your fantasies, so that he’s forced to overpower you. You fight him so he has no choice but to press a blade to your throat, a gun to your temple, to compel you to do as he says.”

Sherlock can’t prevent the gasp that breaks from his lips, and he closes his eyes as if against the images forming in his mind, courtesy of his duplicate’s erotic words. This man has broken into his skull, dredged up his most shameful sexual fantasies—illicit urges and cravings that had only ever flashed into his consciousness momentarily if at all—and is slowly pouring them back into his head, whispering in a magnetically persuasive voice that of course must, nevertheless, be wrong…

“The things you dream that he’d do to you, Sherlock. That you’re longing to do for him. Do you think he’d _let_ you? Would he _want_ you at his mercy, ready to die for him? You’d hand him a knife, kneel at his feet, and not think twice about it, wouldn’t you? You trust him more than you trust yourself.”

 _Stop!_ Sherlock is frantically telling himself to say, but again his vocal cords and tongue are refusing to go along with the plan. Part of his mind is scrambling to deny the words being murmured into his ear, deny that he has thought them himself, deny his reaction to them… the other part is starting to feel alarmingly, thrillingly _liberated._

The ghosts of warm, rapid breaths move from beside his ear as his clone shifts position slightly, though still keeping Sherlock’s arms trapped firmly. With an odd sense of suspense, Sherlock wills his eyes open again. The other Sherlock’s face is once more aligned with his own, now even closer, their noses perhaps ten centimeters apart. Looking up into it is a bit like looking in a mirror, except _not_ , except he’s never seen his own mercurial eyes staring back from a mirror with such heat, such naked want. He feels desired, he feels _dared;_ he also feels rather out of his depth when the slim hips of his mirror image make another wicked, measured thrust, dragging most of the blood in Sherlock’s body downward to intensify the friction, and pulling a broken gasp into the space between their twin sets of lips. “What—do you—want?” Sherlock manages to pant.

The laugh that reverberates through his double (and thus, by extension, through Sherlock) is a rich, suggestive rumble. “That’s a bit of an extensive list. Where to start?” He rubs against Sherlock again, setting an unhurried rhythm. “Perhaps with an overview _._ Thinking in the quite long term, I want to _live_. I haven’t had much of life yet, but I find I’m becoming rather attached to it.” He continues with what is becoming a near-maddening slow grind, a gradual escalation of heat and pressure, the obstacle of their trousers and pants still between them. “In the short term… I want to compare, first-hand, the John in your sexual fantasies against actual John, in the flesh. Preferably in a context that has him naked and aroused, also preferably in conjunction with _you.”_ He smiles with half-lidded eyes, seductive with promise.

His brain temporarily sliding offline, the suggestion hits Sherlock like a ball of molten lead to the stomach. All arguments and negations are obliterated in the blaze of arousal surging through him at the utterly hedonistic image his mind has painted of John, abandoning himself to pleasure, his compact, toned body pressed between two identical, wraithlike figures…

The man looming over him has clearly been enjoying the reaction prompted by his words: the smoke-colored irises staring into his own have been dominated by expanding pupils. “Finally, thinking in the—immediate— _hmm_ —future…” his clone is showing evidence of his own increasingly urgent desire, his voice beginning to catch as he moves, “I want to _push you to the edge_ and watch you let go.” He leans down abruptly and bites Sherlock’s neck just below his ear.

“Yes-- _yes,”_ Sherlock chokes the words out in a rushed exhale, and he’s not even sure what he’s agreeing to, exactly, only that his entire body seems to be singing with affirmation and encouragement as he thrusts his hips upwards to meet his double’s, and then the man above him is suddenly pressing their mouths together, hot breaths trading back and forth between awkwardly clashing teeth: a kiss gone clumsy at the outer edges of desperation. For a moment Sherlock considers what it would be like, kissing John like this, _being_ kissed by John like this, and all at once there is a rush of vertigo as arousal sweeps through his body, outstrips his conscious observation, sends him hurtling towards completion; another couple erratic thrusts from his flushed and almost equally frantic clone, and Sherlock is coming, crying out. A name that is not his own is dragged from his lips, and this is enough to push the other man over the edge, as he presses his hips down roughly, once more, and stiffens, choking out a muffled sob before collapsing on top of his creator.

A few moments later, when Sherlock’s thoughts begin to hiccup into motion again, he realizes that his arms are no longer pinned down, and haven’t been since he asked his double what he wanted.

Before his mind can take him much further down this road, the weight along his body lifts as the man in question slides to his feet gracefully, looking a bit rumpled and debauched but (if possible) even _more_ self-satisfied than he had before their sudden tumble to (and on) the floor. “Well,” he begins brightly, straightening out his shirt sleeves, “you’ll probably want to tidy up a bit.” He directs a knowing look at Sherlock’s trousers. “After all, John should be home shortly.” He walks around Sherlock towards the door to their flat, and Sherlock hears it click open. “I’ll be in 221C, staying out of your way.” He pauses on the threshold, before stepping out into the hall. Sherlock swears he can _hear_ the smirk in his voice as he concludes, “I’m sure you’ll have a lot to talk about.”

Then the door clicks shut, and Sherlock is alone on the floor with his thoughts.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Sherlock spends the rest of the night holed up in his bedroom, much of it in the same position: cross-legged on his bed, fingers steepled and pressed to his lips.

About ten minutes after he’s cleaned up and donned his dressing gown, he hears John enter the flat and call his name. “Sherlock?”

He doesn’t respond. Too much information is ricocheting around his head, refusing to fall neatly into place, and when he tries to grab hold of any one thought it slips away like a fish in a stream. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say. Maybe John won’t realize he’s home if he stays quiet.

He hears John move into the kitchen, put a bag down on the table, move towards the hallway that leads to Sherlock’s bedroom. “Sherlock? I brought take-away. Indian.” John isn’t approaching his bedroom. The closed door shouldn’t necessarily tell him anything, since Sherlock keeps his bedroom door shut even when he’s not home. There are things he has to hide, to protect.

Sherlock hears him hesitate in the hall just outside his door. He imagines John walking in, pictures him approaching the bed where Sherlock is seated. John would stop right at the edge, look down to Sherlock’s upturned face, reach out and grab his chin with one hand… Sherlock’s eyes would drift shut as the hard, insistent mouth descended on his own.

Even as the sensations begin to overwhelm him, Sherlock wonders what would happen if he tried to pull away. He imagines drawing back, and immediately John’s hand slips around to tangle in his hair at the nape of his neck— _“No, you don’t,”—_ yanking Sherlock forward, the sharp pain prickling his scalp causing him to gasp, eyes snapping open. John takes advantage of the now kneeling man’s open mouth, tongue slipping inside, and Sherlock groans at the intrusion. Tries to turn away, presses a hand against John’s chest to create some distance, and is instantly rewarded with a tight grip on his throat, a warning as John’s left hand all but closes off his airway. _“Did you think you were going somewhere, Sherlock? Are you busy; is there a case you need to solve?”_ Deep blue eyes stare him down calmly as Sherlock’s head starts to swim. Waits until Sherlock barely manages to shake his head. John’s smile is not actually a smile, somewhere between grim and mocking. _“No? Didn’t think so.”_ And he reaches down to grab Sherlock through his trousers, left hand still firmly in place at his throat, restricting each breath and causing sparks to fire beautifully in front of Sherlock’s eyes…

A tentative knock on his door shatters Sherlock’s fantasy, and he finds that though he is still seated in the same position on the bed, he is also unmistakably aroused. “Sherlock? Are you going to eat today? There’s chicken korma. And poppadums.”

Sherlock’s stomach growls. He had some toast yesterday, he thinks, and possibly half an omelet; or had that been Monday? Regardless, he is currently not on a case (the situation with his unruly clone does not count), and he finds he is quite hungry.

Then he pictures himself sitting with John in their chairs in the living room, imagines trying to eat dinner while his stomach clenches as he watches his oblivious flatmate calmly bringing the food to his mouth. He thinks about the spot on the floor there that he has just vacated—something changed, there, and he’s still not sure what it is—and the swirling thoughts firing through his mind speed up, almost too fast for him to consciously process. It is thoroughly unpleasant.

However, he thinks he ought to say something to John. He thinks there are a lot of things he ought to say to John. He opens his mouth-- “Not hungry,” he calls out, holding his head in both hands and shutting his eyes tightly.

Silence for a moment. “Right. Well, it’ll be in the fridge, then,” John replies. Another moment of hesitation, and then his footsteps retreat to the kitchen.

He sits, motionless, as he hears John grabbing utensils from the drawer and walking through to the sitting room. He sits as he hears John switch on the television, hears the muffled voice of some kind of sport announcer briefly before the volume is lowered so drastically as to be inaudible. He is still sitting in the same place when the television is turned off, and John returns to the kitchen and places the leftovers in their refrigerator. He listens as John moves to the bathroom, shutting the door. The toilet flushes, the water runs in the sink. Sherlock can’t hear John brushing his teeth, but knows that comes next. A few minutes later and John switches off the lights and heads up to his own room.

Like the gradually slowing beat of his own heart, the familiar rhythm of John’s night routine seems to have helped quiet Sherlock’s mind. As quiet descends over the rest of the house, he asks himself the question that he had asked his clone several hours before. _What is it that you want?_

-o-o-o-o-o-

“John, I’m going to Bart’s.” Sherlock sweeps through the sitting room, already wrapping himself in his coat, covering his pale blue shirt and popping his coat collar to emphasize his cheekbones. Well, John admits the collar-popping is most likely an unconscious habit at this point, but its results stand true, regardless.

Realizing he may have let has gaze linger a second too long, John hastily clears his throat at Sherlock’s inquisitive stare. “Want me to come along?”

“No!” The response is immediate and forceful. Sherlock’s eyes slide away from his, and John is instantly suspicious. “Um, no, that won’t be necessary,” Sherlock amends, in a clear attempt at placating him. “It’s—I won’t be gone long, no need for you to abandon your program.” He is gesturing at the TV, which John had not in fact been watching as he sipped his tea and read the sports section of the paper.

“Right,” John replies, hoping he is imagining the pitiful note of disappointment in his own voice.

“Right,” Sherlock repeats, odd behavior in itself, and hesitates a moment, perhaps formulating an excuse, some lie.

“Don’t let me keep you,” John cuts in, surprising himself with the bitterness he feels. Perhaps there is a flash of something guilty in Sherlock’s expression before he turns away, but then he is out the door and hurrying down the steps.

At once, John feels the emptiness of the flat pressing in on him again. He’d been looking forward to a quiet Sunday morning together, perhaps updating his blog while Sherlock worked in the kitchen and wandered over to make occasional derisive remarks over John’s shoulder. Or trying to read an article in one of the monthly medical journals he kept meaning to catch up on, with Sherlock serving as a constant distraction, demanding cups of tea or complaining about how loudly John was turning the pages. Finally, perhaps, Sherlock would go through his email aloud, occasionally dismissing cases as dull or predictable judging solely by the client’s email address and the subject heading. He’d open some of the more ridiculous requests anyway, reading them to John and looking up with an expectant, unguarded grin to share in John’s laughter.

When was the last time they’d just sat together like that? Weeks ago? John’s throat feels constricted, and he clears it noisily so he can breathe again.

Embarrassing, that sudden rush of emotion, even if he _is_ the only one there to notice it.

Frustrated with the mindless yammering of the talk show host and the melodramatic nature of the current guests’ marital conflict, John stabs the remote’s power button.

Moments later, a loud clang echoes from somewhere below him.

Mrs. Hudson is away for the weekend, John suddenly recalls, as several rhythmic “thuds” follow the initial clang.

His gun is in his hand and he’s creeping down the stairs in less than a minute, avoiding the oldest, creakiest planks, following the continued sounds of metal striking metal, finally finding himself just outside the door to 221C. The door is shut, but light is visible through its curtained panes of glass, and the noises continue.

John switches off the safety on his gun, puts his right hand on the doorknob, and shifts his weight forward, turning the knob carefully. It is unlocked.

In one swift movement, he kicks open the door and steps in to the room, holding his gun straight out at shoulder level, and shouting “Stay where you are!”

Several things make themselves evident simultaneously:

1) The flat is not as he had last seen it. No longer empty, save for moldy wallpaper and a few dusty boxes of old newspaper: it has been transformed into a bright, cluttered, well-appointed laboratory. A large metal cylinder dominates one corner.

2) The person within the room has frozen as instructed, apparently in the act of hitting an expensive-looking instrument with a spanner.

3) That person is Sherlock.

“Oh, hello,” Sherlock says, looking completely unruffled, though still not moving except to offer John a smile. It’s the one he uses to butter up strangers.

In the instant after all of this registers, John quickly lowers his gun and slumps backwards against the wall beside the open door. “Oh, Jesus, Sherlock, what were you thinking?! I could have--” John cuts himself short, clicking the safety back on and tucking the gun in his back waistband. A flood of combined relief, nausea, and anger threatens to overwhelm him as he focuses on slowing his breathing and the pounding of his heart. Sherlock hasn’t yet moved, seeming to wait for John to recover himself. Finally he manages, “What’re you doing here? I thought you were heading over to Bart’s.”

Sherlock’s familiar calculating gaze dances over him, and then John sees him relax. His false smile slides off to be replaced by something less familiar, more… sly, John thinks. “Oh, yes, Molly called me just after I left. She said she wouldn’t have what I needed for another couple of hours.” Sherlock slowly puts down the spanner, and John finds himself watching the way those elegant fingers slide over the tool as he releases it, his fingertips trailing along its length, almost a caress. John is immediately, uncomfortably aware of a low-level flush of arousal. He can’t help but think that the suggestive motion had seemed deliberate. “So I thought I’d take care of a few things here.” Sherlock is observing him with a thorough, direct stare that makes John feel utterly defenseless, naked. It recalls to John the first time that he and Sherlock met, in the lab at Bart’s.

“What—what’s all this, anyway?” John gestures widely to encompass the whole room, attempting to cover his discomfiture with disapproval and somehow regain the upper hand.

“Oh, I didn’t want to clutter our kitchen with more of my equipment,” Sherlock replies, his voice calm and low, a pleasant purr that has John unconsciously leaning forward to hear more clearly, until he catches himself.

“As if you’ve ever concerned yourself about that before,” John laughs, short and disbelieving. “What’s really going on, Sherlock? You were hiding this from me.”

Sherlock leans back against the table, cocking his hips in a gesture that strikes John as unnecessarily provocative. John’s eyes sweep down over the thin, wiry form in the impeccably tailored shirt and trousers, before he catches himself and turns away. He isn’t entirely unused to his own body’s reactions to Sherlock’s undeniably attractive one, but something is different, now, John thinks. Isn’t there a subtle alteration in the way Sherlock is holding himself? It’s as if he’s aware of his effect on John, and is displaying himself deliberately, encouraging the attention. “I wasn’t _hiding_ anything from you, John,” Sherlock says in that same low voice, laced with a hint of amusement. “I just didn’t see any reason to bother you with it.” He sounds so quiet and reasonable, so authoritative and unconcerned, that John begins to doubt his own suspicions. Why would Sherlock even bother keeping a second lab secret from him, anyway? He never bothered to spare John’s sensibilities before. And surely there’s no difference in the way Sherlock is holding himself? It must be a product of his own unsettled mind, continuing the train of thought he’d begun upstairs.  

John shifts, forcing himself to relax, redistributing his weight to lean more heavily on his good leg. “Well, you probably _should_ have bloody well bothered me. Christ, I thought you were an intruder. I nearly…” His voice rises in pitch on the last word, and John quickly clamps down on the rest of his sentence. He takes a deep breath, exhales, then another, bowing his head as his hand comes up like a shield across his eyebrows, covering his eyes. His heart keeps pumping too quickly, his system stuck on high alert.

He hears the door being closed gently beside him, senses rather than sees Sherlock’s stealthy intrusion into his personal space. John tenses, does not lift his head.

“Well,” murmurs Sherlock’s voice, which nonetheless seems too loud and far too close in the silence hanging expectantly between them. “Good thing you didn’t. Accidental gunshot wounds are not… the kind of violence either of us _wants_.”

 _Want_. The word is weighted with meaning, the way Sherlock says it, holding the ‘n’ in his mouth, drawing it out in a vibration that finds the base of John’s spine.   It jolts him, his hand falling away and his head snapping up to meet Sherlock’s gaze.

John’s breath catches. For a few beats, John doesn’t recognize his flatmate, so unfamiliar is the expression on his features. Lips tilted up at one corner in a deliberate, lingering smirk, eyes regarding him from beneath slightly lowered lids. Those eyes, unblinking, are completely focused on John’s own, not analyzing, not expectant, but… _hungry_ , John’s brain supplies, and all at once the space between them seems to be charged, weighted: the air before a thunderstorm.

 _Something’s off_ , John’s subconscious insists, and it’s not just the thrilling risk of what-could-be, the world-changing potential of _if-I-just-leaned-forward._ It’s undeniable now, there’s something else here, a wrongness that John can’t shake even as he watches the calculated signal of a slowly bitten plush lower lip, as Sherlock continues to regard him intently.

John’s tongue darts out along his own lower lip before he is even aware of the impulse. “I--” he starts, but that first syllable comes out hoarse and cracked. He swallows, clears his throat and continues. “I wouldn’t have thought we’d be wanting—any violence. Violence of any sort. Um.” He knows what this is, now, the verbal dance they’re engaged in. From anyone else, John would have recognized it immediately. The suggestive tone, the proximity, the body language: this was _flirting_. It couldn’t just be John’s wishful thinking.

But from _Sherlock_?

“Come now, John, you don’t have to pretend around me,” Sherlock murmurs in a voice so low that John is surprised it is even audible over the hammering of his own heart and his increasingly ragged breaths. “Have you ever observed me to be frightened off by _violence_? Surely by now you’ve noticed that, like you, I thrive on it.” Sherlock pauses, then leans in closer, impossibly close, until his face completely fills John’s vision. “Violence of _feeling_ , John. Violent _passions_.”

The words should by all rights sound ridiculous, like the titles of the cheap paperbacks on the shelves at Sarah’s apartment. Instead, in Sherlock’s rich baritone, they ignite erotic _(dangerous)_ images in John’s head: his hand reaching out to yank soft dark curls, to drag this impossible man to his knees. Curling his fingers carefully but deliberately around Sherlock’s elegant throat, stopping that smug voice mid-sentence. Seeing the superiority in Sherlock’s eyes dissolve into uncertainty, then flare into heat.

_Violent passions._

This can’t be real. After so much time spent admiring this incandescently brilliant man from a safe distance, John hesitates to jump to a conclusion that might destroy the tentative control he has kept over his own desire. Sherlock doesn’t want him, had said he was “flattered” by John’s interest but “married” to his work. And yet… so much time had passed, since that first dinner at Angelo’s. So much had happened, so many other things had changed. Wasn’t it possible, just possible, that Sherlock’s feelings might have changed, too? John gets ready to ask these questions, bolsters himself so that the rejection, when it comes, will hardly touch him, will merely float on past. Or, at the very least, will leave in its wake only minimal bruising.

Then he stops, his brain finally latching onto the one concrete detail that had been niggling at him since he had first seen Sherlock standing in 221C.

Sherlock had been wearing a pale blue shirt when John last saw him as he left the flat, before John had burst in on him here. John is certain of it, had consciously noted it. Now, his shirt is white.

 _Maybe he changed shirts after Molly sent him that text_. But what, then: has Sherlock been keeping a second wardrobe down in this flat along with all his equipment? He certainly hadn’t come back upstairs.

“Sherlock…” John is just beginning to formulate an inquiry that won’t sound like paranoid ramblings, when he hears the front door opening.

They both freeze.

The footsteps in the entry hall are almost certainly male; even John can tell the difference between the sound of Mrs. Hudson’s low heels clicking and the footfalls of a grown man.

Instinctively, John slowly edges around his friend to stand between him and the door. Sherlock steps back as John raises his right hand to indicate silence, his left automatically reaching for the gun tucked in his waistband. Risking a quick glance over his shoulder to confirm Sherlock’s position, John is surprised to see several expressions flicker across his face—too swiftly to be identified—before it goes carefully blank.

John’s eyebrows draw together, but he has no time to unravel the mysterious reaction. The footsteps, having hesitated for a moment at the bottom of the staircase, are now definitely moving back towards them, down the short corridor to 221C. John quickly switches off the light, then takes several steps back from the doorway, making sure Sherlock moves along with him.

Behind him, he hears Sherlock shifting slightly. “John--” he starts to speak, but even his quietest whisper is an unacceptable threat right now, and John signals again with his hand.

The footsteps have stopped right outside the door; there is a vague shape visible through the curtains covering the glass panes. John feels himself grow calm, the adrenaline rush serving only to focus his attention as he settles into firing stance for the second time in an hour, clicks off the safety on his gun, and holds it pointed steadily at the door.

The handle starts to turn. Sherlock fidgets again, clearly anxious. John waits.

The door opens, and there is a tall, extremely familiar silhouette outlined in the light coming from the hallway. John stiffens, cold suddenly trickling down the back of his neck. Dread, as the figure’s hand reaches up beside the doorframe toward the light switch.

John must be wrong. John has to be wrong. He holds his breath as the light flicks on.

It is undeniable.

Sherlock is standing in the doorway.

Sherlock is also standing behind him.

The world starts tilting to the side and John decides it’s best to just go with it at this point.

The last thing he hears before slipping out of consciousness is Sherlock’s voice, doubled, calling his name in alarm.

-o-o-o-o-o-

“…surely you knew I wouldn’t just wait. Tiresome. You would have put it off indefinitely,” John hears Sherlock saying.

“I was just waiting for the… opportune moment,” Sherlock answers… himself.

John tenses. His eyes are closed, his mind is still blurry, but a sense of unreality is growing within him, intensifying rather than fading as he swims up towards consciousness.

“No. You were _afraid._ Obvious.” A long-suffering sigh. “Honestly, what a waste of time.”

John keeps his eyes shut. While he is sure by now that he is no longer asleep or dreaming, his brain is only reluctantly kicking back into gear. Still, he is sure something is wrong. He has walked in on Sherlock talking to himself, of course, countless times. Talking to the skull, talking to the empty room, talking to John as if John had been there for hours and had not just walked into the flat seconds prior. This, what he is hearing now, though, does not sound like any of those situations.

“You don’t know him!” Sherlock’s voice snaps from somewhere to John’s left. “You think you do, but you don’t.”

“Clearly, you don’t know him either,” Sherlock’s voice replies, coming from off to the right now, but John is presently refusing to draw any conclusions from this rapid shift in space. “Not in the biblical sense, certainly,” Sherlock adds in a smirking tone.

Had Sherlock just made a _pun?_ And used sexual innuendo? Surely… surely not. John’s head is starting to spin as he fights to ignore the recent memories pressing at the edges of his mind.

The voice from his left cuts in quickly in a low tone, forestalling further analysis on John’s part. “You _don’t_ know him,” Sherlock repeats. “You don’t know what we could _lose!”_

There is a moment of near silence after this outburst, during which John tries his best to regulate his breathing, anxious to avoid any attention.

When Sherlock’s voice comes from his right, it is so low as to be barely audible. “There are things _you_ don’t know,” he insists, sullen. “You think you’re so clever. But there are still things that you see and yet, fail to understand.”

Another pause. Then, “Ha!” A toneless laugh, familiar, completely lacking in mirth. “I refuse to delude myself. That is all. You would learn that too, in time.”

“Fear.” An irritated sigh. “How tedious. And here I thought we enjoyed taking risks.”

“This risk is _unacceptable!”_ This final assertion is gritted out with surprising force and emphasis, and the vehemence is so unexpected that it shocks John into opening his eyes.

He closes them again almost instantly in a long blink, hoping it will erase what he’s seen. Hoping when he raises his eyelids again the world will make more sense.

There is complete silence for a minute. _Well, so much for pretending to be asleep. Here goes nothing._ Bracing himself, he opens his eyes again.

He is on a bed. Sherlock’s bed. In Sherlock’s bedroom. Sherlock is standing to his left, about two feet away. Also, Sherlock is standing to his right, almost leaning against the mattress. Two sets of bright grey-blue eyes are observing him with a combination of extreme interest and wariness, as if regarding a new species of wildlife that may or may not decide to bite. John has a vague memory of having fallen, of losing consciousness and hitting the ground. He feels no pain in his skull, but nevertheless he places a hand across his face and groans, “Christ, I must’ve hit my head pretty hard.” John says this with feeling. He says it with conviction. He says it like he desperately hopes that someone will agree with him and that it will turn out in the end to be true.

There is silence from both sides of the bed, and John relaxes into it for a moment. Tries to hide in his delusion just a second longer. The silence takes on an expectant quality, however, and John winces behind the hand still covering his features. Then Sherlock speaks: “You haven’t actually hit your head, have you?” from his left and “It’s _not_ a concussion, John!” from his right. The two identical voices talk over each other, then fall silent again. John thinks he detects perhaps a trace of guilt in both of them.

Oh well. He can only lie to himself for so long. The fact is, John knows he remembers seeing two Sherlocks _before_ he had passed out (he refuses to think of it as ‘fainting’). He remembers seeing a white shirt and a light blue shirt. He also remembers the exchange he had with Sherlock in 221C, the peculiarly weighted words and gestures. Until they had been interrupted by… Sherlock. Slowly, John slides his hand down his face until he has an unobstructed view of the room. Once he can see again, however, he runs out of energy to complete the action and leaves his hand half-covering his nose and mouth. “Sherlock,” John finally states in a calm (though muffled) tone, “Why are there two of you.”

There is a beat, then nearly simultaneously, in stereo: “It was an experiment.”

John closes his eyes again for a moment, mumbling, “Stupid question. ‘F course it was. Why would I even ask.”

The silence lasts for another few moments, both Sherlock on the left and Sherlock on the right staring at him in nearly identical bemusement. John blinks. And blinks again. Opens his mouth and closes it. Focuses on the Sherlock on his right and finally asks, “So, _you’re_ Sherlock?”

“Yes,” they both reply in unison.

The Sherlock in the blue shirt--the one to John’s left--also offers a cutting glare across the bed, in response.

“Well. That’s interesting.” John rubs his eyes briefly, but when they focus once more on the scene in front of him, he is forced to sigh in defeat.

The Sherlock in the blue shirt shuffles his feet like a reprimanded child showcasing his remorse. The Sherlock in the white shirt coughs into his hand awkwardly.

Finally the Sherlock in white starts, “Perhaps it would be best if I--”

And the other Sherlock cuts in, “No, stay.”

They blink at each other and (John assumes) have a brief telepathic discussion.

“Okay,” John says, making both Sherlocks jump briefly in surprise. “Okay. I’m definitely not dreaming. And yet...”

“Yes: cloning.” / “Well, I suppose you could say--”

“Okay,” John repeats, silencing both of them. Cloning. _Christ._ He breathes. Over the years, living with Sherlock, he has become very good indeed at taking things in his stride. Especially when it comes to a crucial juncture like this, where the choices are either taking things _(cloning??)_ in his stride or experiencing a mental break. “Okay. Just the two--just the two of you? We haven’t got--dozens of mad genius consulting detectives running around London, have we?”

“Yes, just us.” / “Honestly, John.”

“Right. Good, that’s… that’s good. I just want to know, then, which one of you I have been--living with for the past few years.”

“Well--” / “That’s--”

“Honestly. I’m not interested in a philosophical discussion.”

“Does it really matter, John?”

“Does it--yes, of course it matters. Of course.” John is getting agitated, increasingly so. He realizes that his hands have started to clench and unclench in the duvet cover, and stills them with an effort, clamping down on his fight-or-flight response. Control. He needs to get control of this situation somehow.

On top of everything else, his mind is still whirling with the thought that he is on Sherlock’s _bed_. Where Sherlock has lain countless times, presumably sometimes naked, particularly given his penchant for occasionally wandering the flat in nothing more than a sheet. He feels heat rising to his face and hopes for a moment that the Sherlocks might mistake it for a sign of his increasing agitation and anger, or miss it altogether.

It is a vain hope. He should know better, really. The Sherlocks instantly narrow their eyes and tilt their heads in eerie near-unison. “ _Why_ does it matter?” the Sherlock to his left asks. Meanwhile, on his right, Sherlock takes a slow step closer to the bed.

“It, it _matters_ , all right? It just…” John trails off.

He is remembering. He thinks about late nights sitting in front of the fireplace, rain falling outside while they stayed cozy and dry together with a bottle of whiskey or wine from a grateful client. How the glow in his chest seemed to suffuse his whole being as they sat across from each other in a room so full of warm companionship and shared thoughts and memories that everything outside its walls ceased to exist.

In particular, John remembers just such a night, after indulging in a few celebratory glasses of whiskey, when Sherlock had been in an especially talkative mood. He had started sharing stories from old cases, choosing those featuring London’s most absurd criminals. John had been delighted to see how animated Sherlock became as he got caught up in the narrative, feeding off John’s hilarity and appreciation. By the end of the night, Sherlock had been standing (rather unsteadily, by that point) to act out impressions of the various characters, mimicking exaggerated movements and voices until John had no longer been able to see through the tears in his eyes, and Sherlock had himself finally doubled over with mirth, leaning on the back of his chair for balance as he caught his breath, grinning.

It’s important to John to know which Sherlock _that_ is. But he has no idea how to express this thought.

Sherlock on his right has reached the side of the bed, is now only an arm’s length away. John has gradually focused his attention on him, on his white shirt, which is unbuttoned at the top and falling to either side to display those prominent and distracting collarbones. There’s something deliberate in his movements again, making John’s heart speed up, his muscles tense. Sherlock tilts towards John slightly, invading his personal space. “You’re asking the wrong questions, John,” he says, and John cannot look away from the intensity of that gaze. “Not, ‘which of you was here first?’ Dull. Ultimately a moot point, I think.”

“What should I be asking, then?” John’s eyes are fixed on this Sherlock’s, and he sees how he glances to John’s left, quickly, raising an eyebrow as if in challenge. But the Sherlock in blue is silent.

“Well, perhaps something along the lines of… ‘Which of you wants to… _touch_ me first? Which of you wants to kiss me, first?’” John is frozen in place, completely paralyzed as Sherlock leans forward even further, the mattress shifting as he places one hand on it for balance. He hovers above John where he sits against the pillows and headboard. John inhales sharply but still does not move. Hearing these words from Sherlock’s own lips (such little words, really: _touch, kiss, me)_ has finally brought John’s thought process stuttering to a halt. He hears the blood roaring in his own ears, feels Sherlock’s intrusion into his personal space like the pull of a magnet. His body is singing with longing: _closer, please, closer._

He tries to rein himself in, still afraid to hope. “Sh… Sherlock, what are you talking about?” he asks, but it is more a plea than a demand, and more awed than indignant.

From his left, still a few strides from the bedside, the other Sherlock starts, “No, wait, don’t--”

“There’s no reason to fight yourself, John. I want the same thing, _we_ want the same thing.” Sherlock’s face is directly above and in front of his, so close now that John can see the individual lashes on his half-lidded eyes. He imagines he can see the intention in their pale mirrors, imagines he can read Sherlock’s mind. He can see his own desire reflected back at him. It is a heady moment.

“Stop!” Sherlock hisses from John’s left, but his counterpart appears to ignore him.

“John,” continues Sherlock, his face so very close, and John finds that he’s staring at his lips as they form his name, mesmerized by their familiar shape, by their proximity and apparent accessibility. “John,” he repeats, “if there’s something you want” (that word dropping down into a growl, making John shiver) “you should just take it.” The pale eyes above him flick over to his left again, just for a moment, and it occurs to John that perhaps those words are not solely for his benefit.

“I,” John says. He stops, licks his lips. He is leaning forward without really being aware of it. The face so near his own is familiar in every way, but… “Sherlock. We should--” Suddenly, John’s mouth is too dry to form another word, as the man looming over him slowly bends closer, eyes still open, reading John and simultaneously breaking him down.

“Hm, should we?” Sherlock repeats in a low tone: a question that does not want an answer. He is so near that John can feel the words disturbing the air on his own lips.

A sharp noise of frustration from his left is John’s only warning before a pale-blue-shirted Sherlock is on the bed next to him. John does not have time to form even a syllable of inquiry as long-fingered hands grasp either side of his face, guiding his head to the left and turning it upwards in one movement as Sherlock roughly presses his mouth over John’s.

There is a moment where they are stiff, frozen, but only a moment. A slight shift, a catch in John’s breath, and then John is closing his eyes and relaxing into the desperate clutch of Sherlock’s hands. _Yes, this_ , says a voice in John’s head, and his lips slide over Sherlock’s as he adjusts the tilt of their connection.

The small whimper that rises from the back of Sherlock’s throat sparks something in John, an urge to possess and overwhelm, has him suddenly reaching his own hand up to the back of Sherlock’s head, pulling him in to deepen the kiss and thereby upsetting his balance. Sherlock stumbles, but John manages to shift and guide him so that he collapses on the bed beside John, half on his right side, his body awkwardly twisted to accommodate John’s thorough perusal of his mouth. John is cradling the back of Sherlock’s head with his left hand, soft dark curls silky against his fingers, and gripping Sherlock’s upper arm with his right, and all John can think is how right it feels to have Sherlock’s body in his grasp, finally tangible, eager and welcoming, just for now. His.

A shift on the mattress to John’s right snaps him back to full awareness, and he pulls back from Sherlock. The white-shirted version of his flatmate is sitting at the foot of the bed, leaning back on one arm as he regards them both, smiling with a self-satisfied air. “Well,” he says languidly, “now that we’re all on the same page.”

John blinks, surprised that he could have so quickly forgotten that not only did they have an audience, but the audience may or may not actually be the object of his initial desire. Sherlock to his left is half-supporting himself on his elbows, still catching his breath, dazed. Sherlock at the foot of the bed shifts, leaning forward toward John’s outstretched legs. “Wait,” John says hastily, “I still need to know which--”

“Oh, it’s obvious, isn’t it, John?” he replies, hovering with his arms on either side of John’s calves now, and the proximity of a Sherlock to his lower body is definitely an effective distraction from any sort of reasonable thought John’s brain might have been scrambling to form. How is it obvious? They both look exactly the same. John can’t possibly know which is _his_ Sherlock, can he?

And yet he finds that he does, somehow. Doubtless, Sherlock has a whole list of tells and clues that are giving it away, but for John it just registers suddenly, a gut instinct. He turns back to his left, where a somewhat flustered and flushed Sherlock is watching him warily. John raises an eyebrow, and Sherlock ducks his head.

“Oh, none of that,” scolds the Sherlock who (apparently) is the clone. “Have we finished with this part yet? Let’s save the recriminations and tedious apologies for later. Christ knows we-- _you_ two have wasted enough time already.” John remembers all the silences he had shared with his flatmate over the years: most of them companionable, some chilly and painful, almost all of them pregnant with the promise of unspoken thoughts, undeclared feelings. He’d carefully ignored them, not ready to open himself up to the possibility of loss, and now it’s his turn to feel guilty. To his left, now, Sherlock has started to turn away. John reaches out, arresting his movement, his right hand leading Sherlock’s face back toward him.

“John,” Sherlock begins, his eyes still downcast, even as he leans into John’s touch. “I meant to--I didn’t mean--”

“He’s right, Sherlock,” John says, “enough. For now.” And John slowly curves his upper body above Sherlock, waiting for Sherlock’s acceptance as he pursues another kiss. Finally Sherlock swallows, then reaches up to pull John down by the shoulders as he parts his lips again, meeting John’s mouth, closing his eyes and moaning softly, almost silently. John lets his own eyes flutter shut as he revels in the pleasure of Sherlock’s pliant mouth working against his, responding to his own gentle movements. The urgency of their last kiss has resolved into something more complex: decadent in its leisurely pace, though still underpinned by that hunger, by a thrumming anticipation. When John flicks his tongue over Sherlock’s lower lip, Sherlock makes a sound almost of pain, and collapses more fully against the pillows. His right hand clutches at John’s back, while his left holds John’s head, keeping him securely in place. John starts to lose himself; his awareness shrinks down to the growing sensitivity of his own lips and the promising, sweet slide of their tongues caressing each other.

John breaks the kiss with a gasp, nearly falling over in surprise as he feels the warm, wet press of a second mouth against the nape of his neck. His gasp melts into a groan as Sherlock’s double moves to a spot just under John’s ear, spreading his lips open against the delicate skin there and sucking, hard. Desire spears down through John’s center, and he shudders, his pelvis unconsciously jerking forward, his growing erection bumping into Sherlock’s hip beside him, the contact startling both of them even through their layers of clothing.

“John, you’re--” breathes Sherlock under John’s hands. He is blushing and his eyes are fever-bright.

“Is this… all right?” Sherlock’s voice rumbles into John’s ear, his breath cooling the newly wet patch of skin just below. Heat is bleeding through to John’s back where the clone is stretched out on the bed along his other side now, half-leaning over him as John, in turn, leans over his Sherlock.

“It--this-- _Sherlock,_ I--I don’t know--” John is conflicted, nearly overwhelmed. The mere fact that Sherlock is lying beside him, offering himself to John… that, on its own, is mildly earth-shattering. John has wanted this, yes, has thought about it (or variations on it) time and again as he sought release alone in his own bed. But who was this _other_ Sherlock, really, that Sherlock had somehow created, and why was it making John’s cock throb to feel his teeth scraping the back of his neck, just the barest hint of a threat?

Sherlock, _his_ Sherlock, in his pale blue shirt, is lying back against the pillows. His left hand is holding John’s forearm tightly where he’s supporting his upper body above Sherlock’s. He’s holding John in place, but the expression on his face is anxious, full of uncertainty. Could he be having second thoughts? John starts to pull back. “Maybe we should just--”

The reaction is nearly instantaneous: Sherlock reinforces his grip on John’s arm, adding a second hand over the grip of the first, saying “No, don’t--” and another arm wraps across John’s chest from behind, lifting him slightly and pressing him into the body now kneeling at his back. John stops moving, still confused, but still aroused.

“John,” that familiar voice purrs against John’s neck, “I know how long you’ve been waiting. I know how long you’ve wanted me--him.”

“But how--”

“Not now,” the voice at his neck insists, and the hand across John’s chest starts sliding down over his stomach, towards the hem of his jumper. “Later.” Beneath John, Sherlock’s eyes are riveted to where his clone’s hand has reached the fabric’s edge. “All right?” the rumbling voice continues, as his fingers slide under the shirt to swirl slowly just above John’s navel. “I’m _tired_ of waiting. I--we--need this, John. We need you, like this.”

Sherlock’s face colors slightly, but he meets John’s questioning gaze and nods.

John thinks for a moment that perhaps he ought to give this situation more consideration. He thinks, as two sets of graceful hands begin to disrobe him, that he should be more unsettled, more disturbed by the fact that he is now sandwiched between two aroused Sherlocks, one of whom is a clone.

“This is--strange,” John breathes as Sherlock’s double pulls his jumper and t-shirt over his head.

“Try not to think about it,” Sherlock says, one hand ghosting up John’s newly-exposed skin, across his chest, the soft touch making John shiver.

“No, I mean--” John starts, but has to stop as the humid press of a mouth begins a gradual glide down his back, its trail following the curve of his spine as he arches in surprise. He tries to compose himself, swallows. But the effort is wasted on the Sherlocks, who surely hear how his voice rises at the end, turning it into a question. “I mean, what’s strange is--I think maybe I should find this-- _more_ strange?”

“But you _do_ find it strange,” says the second version of Sherlock in a low rumble, as he presses John back against his own chest again. Only now, John is surprised by the contact of bare skin against his. “And you _like_ strange.” As he says ‘like,’ the clone presses his hips forward abruptly, and John feels a distinct hardness, veiled in cloth, nudge his lower back.

 _You know what this is?_ John thinks to himself. _This is a bloody dream. That’s why I’m so fucking calm._ Because the outrageousness, the utter hedonistic excess of this predicament is just too much to be believed. The fact is that it’s so far outside of any of John’s prior sexual experiences (and John is nothing if not adventurous in bed) that his brain has abandoned any attempt to fit this into his preconceived notion of reality. Instead, John’s just--accepting it.

Well, if this was the beginning of his inevitable descent into madness, best to hang on and appreciate the ride. “Yes,” John breathes. “God yes.” He sees Sherlock still watching where the hands of his double--his own hands--are sliding down John’s stomach towards his jeans, leaving prickling, alert skin as they pass. John’s attention is divided between Sherlock’s face, his bright, wide eyes and parted lips, and the familiar pair of hands reaching around his body, inching down towards the bulge between John’s legs. His skin is electrified, every hair follicle on high alert, every molecule of his flesh willing those hands to move downward, inward, to just where John most needs them. John’s own hands hover unsteadily as he fights to keep them from just clamping around the pale wrists at his waist and pressing them to his aching erection. His breaths are coming quickly through his nose now-- _god_ but Sherlock’s a bloody tease, they both are. Actually, his Sherlock doesn’t seem to be handling the suspense well, either, as he keeps clenching his own hands at his sides. It’s as if they have all started playing a game of chicken, and something must break, someone must give, but no one is quite sure, in the moments of thick, heated tension, what the breaking point will be.

Then, miraculously, Sherlock’s clone is settling his hands over John’s hardness, caressing him through the denim, stroking with just enough force to make John hiss in air through his teeth and let it out in a pained, barely vocalized little huff of frustration. In the same beat, Sherlock is rising from his reclining position, and then there is another set of hands fumbling busily at the fastenings on John’s jeans, working to undo the button and fly. Sherlock has to maneuver around his double’s hands, where they are still stroking, providing John with only minor relief while they stand in clear obstruction to the process of his disrobing.

“Jesus,” John chokes out as Sherlock finally growls, he _growls,_ and bats away his clone’s hands, sliding his own fingers between the elastic of John’s pants and his skin, tugging jeans and pants down his thighs in one go. John’s erection bobs free, tilting upwards towards his stomach. Sherlock’s suddenly obvious eagerness has set off something in John, in turn, and before Sherlock even has time to properly appreciate the sight of him, John is grabbing Sherlock by the back of his head, fingers threading through curls, and dragging him into a kiss while half guiding him, half collapsing on top of him back onto the bed. “Too many clothes,” John declares, struggling with the buttons on Sherlock’s dress shirt as he attempts to kick off his jeans and pants the rest of the way at the same time. There is a bit of a tangle, and Sherlock nearly gets a knee to his groin--John is almost jabbed in the eye by a pointy elbow--but then John is free of his only remaining clothing and Sherlock is shirtless, chest heaving beneath him as John straddles his hips.

“What do you--what do you need?” John asks, his free hand traveling along the contours of Sherlock’s side, his hip. Wild-eyed, breathless, Sherlock shakes his head helplessly as John rocks once, seeking a moment of relief in the friction against the expensive fabric of Sherlock’s trousers. “Come on, Sherlock, tell me,” John insists through clenched teeth. Rubbing himself like this for much longer will surely cause chafing, and John tilts forward to steal an uncoordinated, messy kiss while Sherlock tries in vain to form an answer.

“John--I--” Sherlock’s face and chest are flushed and his eyes meet John’s pleadingly, as if willing him to read there the things he can’t bring himself to say aloud.

A gasp and then a bitten-off groan cuts in from John’s right, throaty and rough. Sherlock’s clone is right beside them, gaze turned towards them, leaning against the headboard and the second pillow. His white shirt is completely unbuttoned and hanging open. It neatly frames the area just below, where one long elegant hand is stroking the hard length of his cock protruding from the front of his unfastened trousers. He is not wearing pants.

 _“Jesus,”_ John repeats with feeling, as his head whirls.

“It’s just--watching you--watching _us_ together,” the clone continues, a bit unsteadily, low and intimate, his hand moving almost unconsciously over his own erection, “I think I could come like this.” His breath hitches as he speaks, and his hand falters in its rhythm for a second before it resumes at a slightly quicker pace. He looks utterly debauched, lost to the pleasure slowly building under his skin. John feels that gaze, heavy-lidded and hungry, further stoking the fire of his own need. They have an audience, a _rapt_ audience--and it is Sherlock, really, it is still Sherlock, and John thinks he might combust under the intensity of his scrutiny.

 _“John--”_ a frustrated groan from beneath him, Sherlock tilting his hips in encouragement.

“Yes, don’t stop now, John. Grab his hands,” Sherlock’s double directs, as John shifts his focus to the man stretched out beneath him. “Hold him down.”

John watches, enthralled, as Sherlock slowly, deliberately raises both arms above his messy black curls, grasping the wrist of one with the other. He returns John’s gaze. “God,” John whispers, awed, and reaches up with his right hand to press Sherlock’s clasped hands to the pillow. Sherlock’s eyes widen slightly at the pressure of John’s hold, before his eyelids lower again to half-mast. He writhes deliciously under John, seeming to revel in the feeling of having something to struggle against, testing the weight pressing down on his hips as well as John’s firm hold on his wrists.

“Good,” gasps Sherlock’s clone, and John can hear that hand still moving steadily. “Ah-- _John_.”

“What else?” John asks, feeling breathless and giddy, as he stares down into Sherlock’s curiously vulnerable and eager face, hears Sherlock’s own breaths coming erratically through his parted lips.

“His chest. We’re sensitive.”

Sherlock twitches underneath John at the words, in nervous anticipation, before John has even moved to comply. Watching Sherlock’s face, John skims his fingertips over Sherlock’s right nipple. The effect is instantaneous: Sherlock gasps, jolts, his back arching as he strains up against John’s hold, towards the teasing touch.

“Again,” the same voice orders from his right, and this time John wets two fingers in his mouth before dragging them across the small nub on Sherlock’s chest. Eyes shutting involuntarily, Sherlock tosses his head back, exposing his long throat, and _moans_ , low and deep.

“God, fuck, you’re so responsive.” John switches to his other nipple, swirling tight little circles around it as it peaks, pulling distressed-sounding gasps and groans from Sherlock’s lips. John’s still incredibly hard, but now with Sherlock beneath him, his attention entirely focused on John’s body, John’s hands--John finds that what he really wants is to ignore his own need in favor of seeing what reactions he can pull from Sherlock. He licks his lips, glances up to make sure Sherlock reads the intention on his face, then lowers his mouth to suck the now highly-sensitized nipple, alternately swiping and flicking with his tongue. Beneath John’s mouth, Sherlock’s chest vibrates with his startled exclamations as he cries out and pants, his torso twisting in an agony of indecision: first away from John’s mouth, then pressing up into it.

Right next to them on the bed, Sherlock’s clone is still clearly enjoying the show. “You’re doing-- _ah_ \--really well, John. Do you want to push him further? See him-- _ah--_ undone?” The questions are obviously rhetorical. John is sure that Sherlock’s clone--like Sherlock himself--misses very little that passes through John’s head, probably even when that brilliant mind is clouded with lust.

Sherlock is panting and writhing beneath him, the unrelenting stimulation of John’s hot mouth on his chest causing pale skin to flush pink, sweat breaking out in a light sheen on his body. Surprised at the intensity of Sherlock’s response, it is only then that John realizes he has been almost unconsciously rubbing his palm along the bulge in Sherlock’s trousers for some time. Sherlock is struggling to press himself more firmly against John’s hand, but John is still pinning him down, restricting his movements. The more Sherlock squirms, strains, gasps, the more desperate his efforts become, the greater the desire pounding through John’s own veins.

“John, ah, _Christ_ , _Johnnn_ ,” Sherlock chants, chest heaving like he’s just run across half of London.

“I believe you’ve properly wrecked him.” The voice from John’s right sounds rougher, more strained, and John glances over to see that Sherlock’s double is hardly moving his hand at all now, just grasping his length, perhaps a bit too tightly, as if holding himself in check. “You’re doing a fair job of wrecking us both.”

As if in illustration, Sherlock bucks beneath him, clearly impatient for more direct stimulation. In response, John leans down, fastens his mouth on the place where Sherlock’s neck meets his shoulder, and bites. The cry that this wrings from Sherlock’s throat is completely nonverbal, stretching up into a whine and breaking into a sob at the end. The sound electrifies John, and he surprises himself with how much he is enjoying this: not so much the physical intimacy, which he had _known_ he wanted from Sherlock, but the power play, the pleasure of having Sherlock offering himself like this, surrendering utterly as John sucks and scrapes his teeth along the skin he’s just bitten, still caressing Sherlock through his trousers, doing his best to overload his brain with sensation.

“Please,” Sherlock finally chokes out between gasps. “I can’t, it’s too--” John sits back, first admiring the newly reddened bite mark on Sherlock’s neck, then going to his face. His eyes are so wide and dark that John hardly recognizes him: his expression is unschooled, wild, desperate. He’s never seen Sherlock look so human. There is part of John that gets a dark little thrill from contemplating the idea of continuing to _push_ : what if he kept teasing Sherlock, refusing to give him the release he so deeply needs? How far out of his mind could John take him? But--they haven’t discussed this, don’t even have a safeword. And after all, John is only human. He can only deny Sherlock for so long--or, for that matter, himself.

At last, John stops his teasing strokes over Sherlock’s clothed erection and moves to unfasten his fly, but urgency is making him clumsy, and it is a difficult task, one-handed. He is about to release Sherlock’s wrists when his clone intervenes, hands sliding between their bodies and quickly unbuttoning and unzipping.

“Decided to make yourself useful?” Sherlock snipes at his double, somehow managing sarcasm even in the extremity of his need.

“The suspense was unbearable,” his clone replies drily, but the high color across his face--not to mention the insistent jut of his cock--belies his even tone. When he leans back, he stretches half on his side next to Sherlock, propped on one elbow, his other hand returning to slide loosely over his erection. Though he acts as if he is addressing Sherlock, leaning in close and speaking into his ear, he pitches his voice loudly enough to be overheard, and his eyes are on John. “How does this feel? Letting John have you, at last… laying yourself out for him like a specimen for vivisection… putting your body under his control, his to do with as he pleases… Is it living up to your fantasies? It certainly is, from my perspective. You couldn’t fight him off if you tried, you’re completely helpless, at his mercy…” John feels giddy, under the influence of the proximity and eagerness of an extremely aroused Sherlock and his clone’s suggestive commentary. Two sets of eyes follow John’s hands as he struggles to lower Sherlock’s trousers and pants. It takes a bit of maneuvering, as he’s still pinning Sherlock’s lower half with his own body. As he slides the fabric down, the head of Sherlock’s cock peeks out above his waistband before anything else, flushed dark with prolonged need, straining against the elastic of his pants. John thinks Sherlock has been fantastically patient considering the state of his erection, the sight of which makes John’s own prick ache in sympathy.

“Look how we’re affecting him, Sherlock,” the clone continues, as Sherlock’s pants and trousers are finally relocated to just below his erection. “His desire to possess, so obvious, painted across his face. His cock, stiff and leaking for us--is he thinking about how he wants to fuck you, next time? Keep you pinned against the mattress like this, finger you, stretch you open until you’re begging him to _fill_ you?”

“God, _fuck_ ,” John growls. He hadn’t been thinking anything beyond the moment, in fact, but hearing those wonderfully dirty words falling from the clone’s lips is deeply inspiring (he’d imagined, alone at night, how it might be to have Sherlock’s silky, low voice rumbling filthy promises in his ear, but John’s imagination had not done justice to the reality, had not accounted for the shiver of lust prompted by hearing “ _cock”_ and “ _fuck”_ so perfectly enunciated with a pointed “k” at the end). Just now, there’s no way either of them have the patience necessary for penetration, though. Instead, he goes to wrap his left hand around Sherlock’s length, but is stopped as the clone grabs his wrist, pulls John’s hand up to his mouth, and makes quite a show of parting his lips, sliding his tongue out, and slowly licking a broad stripe across John’s palm, his eyes locked on John’s. John swallows, the warm, wet swipe on his palm translating sensation directly to his cock, and he is frozen for a moment before his brain reengages, directing his hand back to where Sherlock’s cock is dripping onto his own stomach. As John’s hand finally makes contact with the overheated skin of his erection, Sherlock’s head snaps back into the pillow and his breath hitches. His mouth drops open; his eyes flutter shut.

John starts moving his hand, and between the saliva coating his palm and Sherlock’s pre-come, it’s a wonderfully smooth glide. Sherlock releases the breath he’d been holding in a sound like startled dismay. He is so hard--throbbing with his pulse--that John knows he must be on the edge. He watches as Sherlock’s chest rises and falls with increasing frequency, as the muscles in his arms tense as if trying to throw John’s hold. Sherlock’s double is touching himself more purposefully now, and John realizes that the pale, slender hand is matching his own movements, stroke for stroke. John stops for a moment, just as a test. At once, Sherlock bucks his hips up, struggling to spread his legs wider, impeded by the pants and trousers binding his thighs, as much as by John’s weight. Simultaneously, Sherlock’s clone hisses in frustration as he forces himself to stop his own hand with what looks like a superhuman effort. _“John,”_ they both start to complain, but John’s hand is moving again almost at once.

The clone resumes his intent observation and replication of John’s method, which John thinks he should find unsettling, possibly, but instead finds incredibly erotic. “ _Ah_ \--a bit faster, now-- _yes_ , like that, keep--don’t stop, John, _god,_ don’t-- _please_ ,” he begs, and John obliges him, speeding up as he works Sherlock’s slick length. Sherlock himself is far beyond words, but his breath is coming out in rhythmic, voiced exhalations--“ _ah, ah, ah_ ”--increasing in frequency and pitch.

John is riveted, could never have imagined how _lost_ Sherlock could sound, how overcome by arousal. _“Christ,_ Sherlock, that’s it, look at you, you’re so gorgeous--god, _both_ of you--yes, come on--” At some point he had started grinding himself against Sherlock’s leg, unable to totally resist the rising tide of his own need. But now, as Sherlock’s breath catches and he stiffens, John forces himself to stop, to watch intently as the body beneath him twists, tenses up, bowing drastically up from the mattress. Sherlock’s mouth drops open and he _shouts_ , crying out as if in crisis, his release striping across John’s hand and his own stomach. Overlapping Sherlock’s voice is his clone’s gasp and grunt of sound as he comes, biting his lower lip and curling in on himself beside them. John is somewhat surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment at the fact that this other Sherlock had been essentially left to his own devices. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, however. His t-shirt is produced from somewhere and is employed in a quick clean-up, and all at once John is the one lying back against the pillows, pressed down at the hips by twin pairs of hands.

Both Sherlock and his clone are shirtless now, and John is no longer certain who is who as he follows their conversation.

“If you would move aside…”

“Um-- _no_.”

“I think so. It’s only fair.”

“But I want to--“

“Well, of course you do: so do _I._ But you’ve already had your fun, it’s my turn--”

“But it’s our _first--”_

“--You’re still catching your breath, anyway--”

He watches the surreal scene of Sherlock and his mirror image facing each other over John’s now painful erection, evidently debating who will have the apparent privilege of sucking him off.

“No rush, take your time,” John quips through gritted teeth. “I’ll just make myself comfortable, shall I?” And he reaches down with every intention of finishing himself right then.

“Wait!” from one Sherlock, and the other grabs his wrist with alacrity, stopping it at John’s side. John groans and slumps back.

“Do try to be patient, John.” / “This is important.”

“Flip a coin!” John implores, as the two Sherlocks narrow their eyes at each other. They’re so close, John thinks, their faces so near they must be breathing each other’s breaths, their lips damp with the moisture from each traded exhalation--

As if on cue, they both turn their considering gazes to John’s face, and John swears there's a sudden increase in the atmospheric pressure in the room. One of them starts “Or, we could?...” and the other responds “yes, I think so,” and without further warning, both versions of Sherlock lower their heads and _bloody fucking hell_ there is no way he’s going to last more than a minute at this rate. One hand lifts John’s prick up towards two heart-shaped, open mouths, one perhaps a bit more swollen from kissing than the other. He groans as soft pink tongues swipe out to taste him, one licking up from the base, the other circling his glans. His hips twitch upward helplessly, but he is still being restrained by large, delicate hands, one spread over each hipbone.

“Ah, oh please, oh _fuck,_ ” John begs, gasping, half out of his mind. He watches with a rising sense of unreality as Sherlock opens wider, takes the head of John’s cock into the hot slickness of his mouth, and Sherlock on his other side parts his lips and gently slides them, soft and plush, along the side of his shaft. There is just the barest brush of teeth. Through the dizzy haze of pleasure, John is aware of wetness, warmth, suction, and the vibration as one Sherlock hums enthusiastically around him. After a few moments they switch, seamlessly, cheek pressed to cheek as they pass the head of his cock from one pair of lips to be simultaneously engulfed by the second. And _god_ if it isn’t incredible to watch that perfect mouth working on him in duplicate: hungry, eager, the two of them so _close_ together. It seems almost choreographed, the way they anticipate the other’s movements. John is barely holding on at this point, fighting to keep from coming, wanting to make this last, to savor it. The sensation of suction stops abruptly as his cock pops free from Sherlock’s lips, and then both their mouths are sliding along his shaft, one dark-curled head on each side, chins and noses bumping each other as they attempt to move in sync.

It’s unbelievable, it’s mind-bending: the power of this image, so impossibly symmetrical. Two identical sets of eyes are fastened on him, gauging his reactions--John feels _analyzed_ , studied, laid bare--lips and tongues are slipping along his sensitive skin, their movements rhythmic yet somehow tender, slicking up both sides, sucking lightly, and _god,_ they’re so close to each other, so _close_ , their mouths keep brushing against each other as they caress John’s length between them, and it’s almost like they’re--it’s like--

John finally goes off with a shout, white light burning out his vision.

When he can see again, he’s greeted by the sight of those two gorgeous mouths working in concert to lick him clean, gathering every stray drop of come from his skin as the aftershocks fade from his system. A second later, the two shirtless Sherlocks turn to each other again, and oh _god_ , are they going to--yes, they _are_ actually kissing, hands pulling their faces together, licking into each other’s mouths as they seem to chase the fading taste of John’s release on each other’s tongues, humming contentedly.

 _Fuck_.

Heart still pounding in his ears, John groans as his spent cock gives an optimistic twitch at the sight, but the two Sherlocks don’t pause in their languid but comprehensive investigation of each other’s mouths. One of them is carding his fingers through the other’s curls, and their eyes are shut in pleasure. John smiles, and then snorts. This gets their attention--Sherlock is always alert to the possibility that someone might be mocking him--and they both raise questioning eyebrows at John.

“Only you could go from fighting with yourself to snogging yourself senseless in under five minutes,” John laughs.

“Enjoyed that, did you?” one Sherlock says smugly. The other colors, slightly, but John sees a smirk on his face as well. They both shift up toward the headboard, by John.

“Bit of an understatement,” John laughs, suddenly drowsy. “But, um, yeah.”

“Good. So did we.” One Sherlock is lifting at the duvet, and John only hesitates for a moment before he acquiesces, moving to slide under it. The Sherlocks had shed their remaining articles of clothing at some point, and it feels wonderfully cozy and decadent as they burrow in together, one on either side of John, possessive limbs thrown across him at awkward angles as he lies on his back.

John closes his eyes, breathing deeply as warmth and heaviness suffuse him from head to toe. “So, there’s going to be a repeat, yeah?” he mumbles, shifting to find the most comfortable position. “I mean, you--you’re both--sticking around?”

A short silence, broken only by quiet, slowing breaths.

“I suppose so.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“That’s--that’s nice,” John yawns, feeling one tentative finger stroking the shell of his ear. He still has questions--quite a lot of questions--but it seems like too much effort to sort everything right now. Tomorrow. There would be time tomorrow.

John relaxes into the cocoon of duvet and consulting detectives.

-o-o-o-o-o-

As John drifts off between them, there is a considering pause as the pair of Sherlocks begin to settle.

“Well, I suppose you could stay.”

“Oh, how very _kind_.”

“For a bit. For now. Just until other arrangements can be made, of course.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of intruding.”

A pause.

“What you--um, what you did, what you said to John--that was… good.”

“Oh?”

“Of course, I’m sure I would have, eventually… one day, I _would_ have…”

“Possibly. Most likely when it was too late.”

“Hm.” Another pause. Sherlock moves his face nearer to John’s head, takes a deep breath, inhaling John’s scent in his hair.

“Well... fair’s fair. Or so they say. I haven’t thanked you, either.” The clone’s voice is slightly muffled; he has settled in with his face burrowed into the crook of John’s shoulder.

“What for?”

“For… all of it.” He hesitates before elaborating. “For--sharing.”

“Yes, yes. All right.” Sherlock clears his throat. “Hm. Since you’ll be staying, we’re going to have to call you something. We can’t both be Sherlock.”

“Of course we can. Why can’t we?”

“What about Wil--”

“ _No._ Absolutely _not_.”

“Just a thought.”


End file.
